Research On Dalian Port During Modern Colonial Rule

Dalian Port in northeast China is an important traffic hub; it have excellent geographicallocation and fertile northeast hinterland. At the end of 19th century, tsarist Russia extended itstentacles to the Dalian Port to seek ice-free port and spoliate the economic interests innortheast China. In 1898, Russia gained the access to lease Dalian and Lushun by the"Sino-Russian Treaty to rent LD". Henceforth, the Dalian Port suffered seven years ofcolonial rule from Russia. In the seven years of colonial rule, for their own needs, tsaristRussia built Dalian port, and opened Dalian Port as a free port for its foreign trade, what madethe port begin to take shape and develop the economy of port. With the port's construction anddevelopment, tsarist Russia wantonly used Dalian Port to export capital, plunder all kinds ofmineral resources and exploit people in Dalian, which completely exposed its aggressive andcolonial nature. In 1905 the Russo-Japanese War took place, Japan won the right to lease theLD from the hands of Russia by the "Portsmouth contract", from then on Dalian entered thestage of the rule of Japanese colonialists. Japan spared no effort to build Dalian port. In orderto achieve the purpose of plundering the Northeast resources, Japan had been activelybuilding Dalian Port, and Port-scale rapidly expanded, with function increasingly sound andfacilities gradually comprehensive. After the occupation of Dalian Port, in order to improvethe status of Dalian Port and change Dalian Port into the economic plunder tool, Japanimplemented a series of policies ,which were beneficial to the development of Dalian Port, inparticular the implementation of special freight system greatly advanced the trade status ofDalian port, and surpassed Yingkou Port to become the first port in northeast China. At thesame time, Dalian Port gradually become the tool of colonialists for plundering resources.Japan and Russia jointly constituted the dark history of colonial rule of the modern Dalianport.This paper will study the development of the port from a historical perspective, and divide it into tsarist Russia and Japanese colonial rule era due to different colonial rulers, then study the history during the different period of Dalian and discuss the development of the port in the time of colonial rule, so that people understand the aggressive and predatory nature of Russia and Japan .In the end, drawing lessons from history, the paper sums up lessons from the port development, which will enlighten the development of current port.